


Overdue

by lamuella



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 01:45:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14781263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamuella/pseuds/lamuella
Summary: The Doctor returns to a newly refurbished Library to take care of some business that is long overdue...





	Overdue

In stacks that went on forever, on the surface of what had once been a doctor moon, a door that hadn't been there before opened. The woman who walked out adjusted her sky-blue coat and looked around with a nostalgic smile. 

Books and more than books covered the walls, on shelves that extended to the horizon: bound paper, scrolls, origami in a million shapes, brightly coloured Narrativity figures. People browsed, elevated to the higher shelves by raising and lowering force-platforms. An army of page droids flitted around: shelving, straightening, shelf-reading, pulling holds, and checking references. The Library was alive in a way the Doctor had never seen it before. 

“They’ve done the place up a bit,” she said to herself, then grinned. “It’s brilliant.”

She drifted around, taking in the sights of the new world.  It was the old Library in miniature, inasmuch as a moon sized building could be described as “miniature”.  In the sky above them, the forest world hung, a computer coated in trees and shadows.. In the main atrium, the smiling face of Charlotte Abigail Lux looked down on everyone, talking only to the children, answering their questions.  The Doctor stayed out of her way, not knowing what to say to her, and slowly headed towards a reference desk. This wasn't something to be rushed. The moment had to be right and the person she was ultimately here to see wasn't going anywhere. Yet. 

A thin man in late middle age looked up and smiled as she approached. “Hello, c- can I help you?”

“Hiya,” the Doctor greeted him. “I’m looking for deep storage and retrieval. The deepest you’ve got.” 

The librarian’s expression grew serious. “S- sorry, access to deep s- storage is restricted to c- certain st- staff and visiting researchers.” 

“That's what I am, yeah. Definitely a visiting researcher. Here.” 

The Doctor rummaged in a pocket of her long blue coat and produced a warrant-card-sized piece of paper. The librarian took it. 

“Visiting fellow from Unseen University? My apologies, D- dr Rincewind. Here, let me get you an access badge with appropriate c- credentials.”

He opened a drawer and dug around. The Doctor looked over the librarian’s desk, it bore few signs of personalisation: a couple of books, a much loved but not much washed coffee cup, and a framed tryptich of drawings. The Doctor didn't recognise the boy or the girl, but the woman… 

It wasn't exact. Paintings from memory often miss details, but the soul was captured in a way that only someone who had loved her very much would manage.

“I like the picture,” the Doctor said. “Your family?” 

The librarian gave an embarrassed smile. “A d- dream I had a long time ago. D- during the Evacuation.”

“Your name’s not Lee, is it?” 

“Mac,” the librarian replied. “Mac Li Vhoy. I was nicknamed Lee as a kid. Why do you ask?” 

The Doctor looked at him and considered telling him. It would be kind, in a way. But in another it would be unutterably cruel. She couldn't bundle him into the TARDIS and take him to the woman of his dreams, so perhaps the woman should remain a dream. Better to let Donna Noble sleep in his mind. 

“No reason,” the Doctor said, taking the badge. “Are the lifts this way?”

The elevator wasn’t the glowing blue platform the Doctor had used last time.  Instead it was a glass and brushed steel construction with a flowing info-feed that made a story of the floors she passed in her descent towards the data core.  Deep Storage was a geographic designation as much as a metaphorical one: the data input of the doctor moon was buried behind layers of security. The Doctor’s badge got her past most of it, and the psychic paper managed the rest.  After this she was ushered into a white room with a computer terminal on one wall. The Deep Storage Interface.

She typed for a long time, entering something that was halfway between a search string and a poem, with a hint of chat-up line at the end.  The point was not just to find what she was looking for but to persuade what she was looking for to want to be found. Seduction by boolean operator.  There was the slightest of pauses, and then the room transformed.

White walls became wood paneling and windows, furniture coalesced into the space, including a desk that dominated the back wall.  And behind the desk, a woman. Her impossibly wavy hair was held back in a way that went beyond formal and into stern. The sternness was given playfulness by the cut of her dark grey suit and its red pinstripe.  Her glasses were an affectation, the Doctor thought, but then every aspect of this was an affectation. Best to let her have her fun.

“Welcome to the Library’s deep storage,” she said.  “I’m Professor River Song, chief digital archivist.”

“You mean you run the digital archives?” The Doctor asked.

“I mean I run the archives, and I’m digital.  And you are?”

The Doctor held out her credentials.

Professor Song glanced at them and gave the simulation of a sigh.  “As I said, I’m digital. That means psychic paper doesn’t work the same on me.  You just showed me a piece of paper saying you really want everyone to know that your trousers have pockets.  I admire the work you’ve done in getting here but I have a lot of work to do today, so if you can’t give me your credentials you’d better give me a good reason to hang around.”

“Because I know who you are,” the Doctor answered.

“I just told you who I am.”

“No, you just gave me one of the names you use,” the Doctor replied.  “I know who you  _ are _ .  I know about the Ponds, and the Silence, about the Angels on the Byzantium and the Pandorica.  I know all of it.”

River’s face was unmoving.  “I think it’s about time you left.”

“I didn’t know it all last time I was here,” the Doctor continued.  “Well, not  _ here _ , you’ve moved premises since then.  Probably for the best, a library that eats its patrons doesn’t get a lot of repeat business.  I’ve been meaning to come back for a while but I couldn’t find the best way to do it.”

“I know what you’re trying,” River said sternly.  “People come along from time to time and try to spin the same tale you are, although not as well as you have.  They forget I read that story all the way to the end.”

“Then maybe it’s time for a sequel.  You’ve told me your name, let me tell you mine.”

The Doctor walked around the desk, which felt as solid as in informational illusion could, leaned in close to Professor Song’s ear, and whispered.

River’s eyes grew wide.  She got to her feet and backed away.  “You…”

The Doctor grinned.  “Hello, sweetie. I’ve come to the Library to check you out.”

\--

Half an hour later the room had become River’s parlour rather than her study.  She drank tea poured from a dented metal flask into a bone china cup. She had offered to arrange refreshment for the Doctor, who had refused, and was instead letting the mathematical representation of an armchair take her weight.

“They transferred everything in the end,” River said, cradling her teacup.  “After the deal you struck with the Vashta Nerada they didn’t really have much choice.  Instead Mr Lux built a new library on the moon and uses the planet as a data core. After a hundred years of quarantine, people were just glad to have it back in any form.”

“What about the four thousand and twenty two?” the Doctor asked.  “Where did they end up?”

“They scattered, saw relatives, or in most cases descendants.  Then most of them came back. The library was the same as it ever was, even on a new planet, while the rest of the universe had moved on.”  River looked at the Doctor over her glasses. “Most people find it unnerving to be thrown out of their own time.”

“Most people have a time to be thrown out of,” the Doctor replied.  “I just have a TARDIS.”

River smiled.  “And how is Sexy these days?”

The Doctor blushed.  “She’s… it’s complicated.  It got complicated for a while.  Look, I wanted to apologise.”

“To me?  For saving my life?”

“For not coming back after I did.  This is my third face since you last saw me.”

“But only your next one since you last saw me,” River reminded her.  “And you’ve been busy, I’m sure.”

“That’s always my excuse,” the Doctor replied.  “But in this case, yes. And part of what I’ve been busy with is you.”

River raised an eyebrow.  “Did we have some sort of adventures I can’t remember?  Was it a Blinovich thing?”

“Not like that.  Although a version of your data echo lived on the TARDIS for a while.  I’ve been finding a way to get you out. The real you.”

“Out of here?  Not possible. I looked into it.  This library includes the works of the galaxy's greatest experts on digital consciousness.  Without a body to return to I don’t have a way out. Something about the way the data echo was stored by my suit when I died.  Besides, I’ve grown a lot since you last saw me. I’m not a ghost any more, sweetie.”

“You’re right,” The Doctor agreed.  “Most of the time if you don’t have a body to return to the library’s central computer can’t do anything.  But that’s because it’s thinking of you like the four thousand and twenty two it saved.”

“And I’m not like them?” River asked.

“In so many ways.  One of which being that you didn’t come here through a teleporter accident.  You’re connected to the data core, look up what happens when the teleporters have a buffer overload.”

River looked up and to the right, before refocusing on the Doctor.  “They get transcribed into library-readable form.”

“More than transcribed,” the Doctor insisted.  “Translated. And not just the way Miss Evangelista was.  I’ve spoken to a dozen people who the library saved. None of them have clear memories of their time here, just dreams of someone else’s life.  Donna was a mum with two kids. She was married to someone who was going by a childhood nickname, because that’s the form the library could cope with.”

“But not me,” River continued.  “No teleporter buffer for me, because you never do things by halves.  You did a swan dive down an elevator shaft and plugged my memory into the data core personally.  I’ve seen the video, you were very dashing. Although I have to say I prefer your hair these days.”

Self-consciously the Doctor touched her hair.  “You’re right. The data core didn’t know how you got here, so it doesn’t know how to get you out.  I do. But there’s a price.”

“Darling, I’ve known you for centuries and across lifetimes,” River answered.  “There’s always a price.”

“This one’s…”  the Doctor trailed off.  “This one’s higher than usual.  I can get you out of the data core, but I can’t get  _ River Song _ out.  Do you understand?”

River looked confused for a moment, then realisation passed across her like a cloud across a sunny day.  “Oh. I see. I wasn’t translated on the way in, but I’d have to be translated on the way out.”

The Doctor nodded.  “The library has a collection of donated bodies you can pick from.  A hundred species, a dozen genders, more eye colours than you can imagine.  And at least two of them are ginger, I checked. Say the word and I can start the process so you walk off into the universe.”

“But the person who came out at the other end wouldn’t be River Song.  They wouldn’t remember travelling with the Doctor.”

“No, but they’d be you in every other way.  Brilliant, wild, amazing. The stars would shake at your passing.”

“Well, they always did before,” River said with a smirk, then looked serious.  “Do you understand what you’re asking me to give up? You don’t see you from the outside.  You don’t know what travelling with you is like.”

The Doctor cleared her throat.  “Well, as a matter of fact-”

River waved the comment away.  “I’m not talking about meeting your other regenerations, as handsome as some of them were.  I’m talking about the  _ Doctor _ .  You’ve traveled with hundreds of people and changed them all.  You met my mum when she was a little girl and she became someone who would tear a hole in reality to get what she wanted.  You meet people and make them better and everything they do after that has an echo of you in it. You make people amazing.”

“No,” the Doctor said, quietly.  “I meet amazing people and I help them see it.  Sometimes, all too often, they get hurt in the process.  Look, if you don’t want this, that’s all right. I’ll visit you more often.  I won’t run away again. If that’s what you want.”

“I want…” River stood, and the room changed again, becoming a wide meadow.  “I want to breathe air. Real air. And see skies that exist even when I’m not looking at them.  I want to drink and get drunk and feel bad the next morning. I want to risk my life for things that matter.  I want the real world again.”

The Doctor nodded with a sad smile.  “All right. I’ll start-”

River quieted the Doctor with a finger on her lips.  “But first,” she said with a smile. I want to get to know you.  The new you. If I’m going to lose these memories, I want a last one that will take a hell of a lot of effort to shift.”

River lowered the finger and kissed the Doctor.  It didn’t feel like a mathematical representation.

\--

The woman emerged from the elevator into the Library’s main atrium, looking confused.  She took in the wonder of the space for the first time. Confusion melted into delight, but at the edge of the delight was the slightest hint of fear.

“Ca- can I help you, m- miss?” Mac asked from the desk.

The woman smiled.  “I’m sorry, this will sound really stupid, but I’m afraid I don’t know where I am.”

Mac nodded.  “That happens s- sometimes, especially with the more intense d- dramaversives.  They live in your sh- short term memory and sometimes they just sort of sh- shove out what was there before.  You’re in the Library. How much do you remember? Do you know your name?”

The woman thought for a moment.  “Pond. Melody Pond.” She fished in her bag for ID, pushing past a large blue book to find it.

Mac took the card and checked the system.  “Ah, found you. You’re booked on the five o’clock teleporter to Tarneus Beta.  You’ll have to check in for that fifteen minutes in advance, so you’ve got an hour to k- kill before then.  Is there anything else I can do to help?”

Melody smiled.  “Yeah, is there anywhere in this library where I can get a drink?”

“Right this way,” Mac said with a grin.

“You’re a gentleman.”

Sitting on a bench at the side of the atrium, the Doctor watched her leave.  She had created the best Melody Pond ID she could, even nipping back to plant establishing evidence a couple of decades before.  Melody Pond was a real person, and the galaxy would know it soon enough.

The Doctor would stay out of her way.  This identity needed to establish itself fully, so that Melody Pond was a real person, not just an escape pod for River Song.  It was the only way to make sure that the translation and graft to the donor body took properly. The consequences of even letting Melody see her now were dreadful in ways that brought back memories of Donna.

So she would let Melody go, and watch from afar as she carved a path through time and space.  Tears in her eyes she blew her a kiss one final time.

“Goodbye, sweetie.”


End file.
